Pay wars hot up, WPP's Sir Martin Sorrell under spotlight

Whisper it not at remuneration committee meetings but we may be living through a golden period of shareholder activism over pay.

The latest target may be Sir Martin Sorrell, the not unassuming Chief Executive of WPP, the world's biggest advertising firm. The Telegraph suggests the company is "risking" shareholder revolt over its £13m pay award to Sir Martin.

The paper doesn't actually provide any evidence of unhappy shareholders, which rather undermines its point nevertheless, having faced a 40% vote against last year's award, and pay having grown significantly this year, shareholder anger may well ensue.

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Sir Martin has consistently argued that much of his pay is in shares, and when he does have spare cash, he uses that to buy yet more stock in his own firm. Given that, over a very difficult last 12 months WPP shares have risen 7.5%, many may feel he has a point.

On rather more rocky ground are executives at Aviva and Barclays - companies which have recently seen full bloodied shareholder rebellions.

Insurance giant Aviva's stock fell 23.5% last year, despite that the remuneration committee decided it would be a good idea to boost Chief Executive Andrew Moss's basic pay of £960,000 by 4.8%.

In the face of severe investor pressure he has agreed to waive the £46,000 increase, although there are murmurings this concession may not be enough.

Even higher profile Barclays, which saw a stock decline of 32.7% in 2011, saw its remuneration plans opposed by a third of shareholders at its AGM on Friday.

Chief Executive Bob Diamond took home a total of £25m in cash, shares and other benefits during the year, including a £5.75m tax liability payment to "help" him relocate to the UK.

The big question facing remuneration committees is whether the UK government (and possibly the US government) will make shareholder votes on pay legally binding. At the moment they only have an advisory status; some might think that if you own a company, you get to decide how much its employees get paid.

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